This new 2012 DVD release of Yellow Submarine is advertised as having been lovingly restored frame by frame to ensure the best picture quality since it was first shown in theaters so many years ago. As for the movie itself, if you’re a Beatles or animation fan (or hopefully both) and have never seen this film then you owe it to yourself to do so. The Peter Max-esque artwork is spectacular fantasy fun, the script is highly amusing, and the Beatles music chosen for the film sounds as good today as when it was new. Though the Beatles had little to do directly with the film and their voices are impersonated till the live footage of them singing recorded for the end of the film their sensibilities are all over this project and they did compose three new (at the time) songs for the film, all of them terrific. I can’t recommend this movie enough and it’s very “family friendly” if you are looking for something fantastic to enthrall your children and introduce them to the music of the Beatles. I saw it in the theater when I was a small child and jumped on buying it on VHS when it was first released. That VHS copy of Yellow Submarine was the most watched movie in our house when our son was very young and I never got tired of it no matter how many times he wanted to watch it. A good thing since he watched it countless times. Now I’m looking forward to this newly restored version on DVD.

According to announcements on The Beatles’ official website the film has been restored in 4K digital resolution by Paul Rutan Jr. and his team of specialists at Triage Motion Picture Services and Eque Inc. Since the hand-drawn original artwork is quite delicate they have used no automated software in the digital clean-up of the film’s restored photochemical elements. All the work was all done by hand, frame by frame.

Bonus features for the Yellow Submarine DVD and Blu-ray include a short making-of documentary titled “Mod Odyssey” (TRT: 7:30), the original Yellow Submarine theatrical trailer, audio commentary with producer John Coates and art director Heinz Edelmann, some brief interview clips with other people associated with the film, storyboard sequences, 29 original pencil drawings plus 30 behind-the-scenes photos. Both Digipak sets will include reproductions of animation cels from the film, collectible stickers, and a 16-page booklet with a new essay by Yellow Submarine aficionado John Lasseter (Chief Creative Officer, Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios).

“Yellow Submarine” is one of those movies that, for me, is pure nostalgia. It was my first introduction to the Beatles, and one of the first non-Disney animated movies I saw.

Even though it makes absolutely no sense, “Yellow Submarine” is still a delightfully weird, acid-tripping story that bounces all over a colorful galaxy of hallucinatory nonsense. And yes, it stars the Beatles as heroes riding around in a Yellow Submarine, seeking to defeat the Blue Meanies. No joke.

Under the sea, there is an idyllic land known as Pepperland, where music rules. But then the music-hating Blue Meanies invade, petrifying the people with green apples and sealing away St. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Fortunately Old Fred the sailor manages to escape in a yellow submarine, to find help.

He finds it in Liverpool, where he enlists the depressed Ringo, and subsequently Ringo’s four buddies John, Paul and George. So the yellow submarine sets out to Pepperland, but encounters many strange dangers along the way — the Sea of Time, the Sea of Science, a monstrous vacuum, giant stomping boots, the Foothills of the Headlands (which is full of giant heads), the “nowhere man” in his “nowhereland,” and the mind-bending Sea of Holes.

But when they get to Pepperland, they find a ruined shell ruled over by the Nazi-like Blue Meanies. Can the Beatles elude petrification/capture, and somehow manage to bring music back to Pepperland?

“Yellow Submarine” has almost no story, and the dialogue often makes little sense. This is a movie that is all about the visuals — colorful, wild, acid-tripping visuals that seem to be trying to dazzle your eyes. It’s a world filled with sea-anemone trees, flowers, patterns, giant grimacing teeth, a flying glove, time travel, stomping boots and strange puffballs with faces.

Seriously, it’s like someone fed LSD to Dr. Seuss and Terry Gilliam at once, then told them to make a movie about whatever they saw. It’s awesome.

Most of the story involves the Beatles careening wildly from one bizarre, surrealist world to another. The animators didn’t make any effort to make anything seem normal, even in the real world — for instance, John Lennon is introduced as Frankenstein’s monster, who drinks a potion that poofs him into his human form. “Hey Ringo. I’ve just had the strangest dream,” he says casually.

And they do a pretty good job of integrating the various Beatles songs into the story. For example, the time-bending “Sea of Time” leads to a rendition of “When I’m Sixty Four” — although some, like “Lucy i the Sky With Diamonds,” just sort of pop out of nowhere.

Don’t watch it for the story — “Yellow Submarine” is all about the Beatles songs and the dazzlingly colorful visuals. A must-see for animation fans and/or fans of surrealism.